


Institutionalized

by Rallieroarz



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4480700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rallieroarz/pseuds/Rallieroarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where the authorities stepped in before JD had the chance to explode himself, Veronica goes on with her life begrudgingly with rich promise of college and a new mindset on how to treat others. Jason is admitted into a psychiatric care center, and Veronica really feels like she’s escaped the horror of her final year at Westerburg until she’s contacted by a Dr. O’Hair at the 'Denniside Institution for Psychiatric Rehabilitation' who requests she visits one of his patients.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     “Smart move. Drag the trigger bomb onto the football field, far away from the thermal packs, and nobody dies. Except you. If you keep clinging onto that thing.”  
  
  
     Veronica jumped, her chin inclined to the patchy grass beneath her shining oxfords.  Metal edges, jagged and uneven, dug into her ribcage painfully. She made no move to pull the explosive in her clutch away from her body, as if she was afraid loosening her grip even an inch would allow JD to rip it from her, or somehow goad him into a vicious attack. “I don’t deserve to live!”  
  
  
     Her words made him flinch back, ever so slightly, as if she’d spit in his face. Almost mockingly he folded his arms, and in a soft plea cooed, “I respectfully disagree. Give me the bomb.”  
  
  
     “Stay away!”  
  
  
     “Or _what_?” Veronica went to leap back, but JD was much quicker, and his hands wrapped unflinchingly around the doomsday device of his own creation. In one swift, harsh motion, he cradled it in his own chest. With a hip, he shoved her away and took several steps back to create distance between them.  
  
  
     Veronica reeled, blood pounding just behind her temples. Her knees shook, and her fingers trembled as they curled over empty palms.    
  
       
     She could feel a gaping hole in the space around her where the bomb used to be.  
  
  
      Confusion, dreadful and creeping, prickled the back of her neck and trickled down through her ears. She shook her head to try and rid herself of the festering feeling in her skull.  
  
  
      Was this was it was like to go insane?  
  
  
     He was talking, but it was hard for her to hear him over the pounding of her eardrums, or the swelling of her tongue. She heard his familiar scratching voice, and took in the somehow comforting twist of his right brow as it hooked into something quizzical and vaguely sinister.  
  
  
     “I’ll trade my life, for yours!” He was saying, and as his face tilted towards the sweltering sun above the football field, she recognized a touch of nonsensical triumph in the way his lips parted over those sharp canines.  
  
  
      All at once, Veronica understood.  
  
  
     JD was going to kill himself.  
  
  
     “Wait, hold on!” There was a disturbing desperation in the way her voice cracked and her arms went out viciously towards him, but the peace in his face caused her to falter before she dared step closer. A million words thundered against her weak skull but none of them managed to break through her clenched teeth. He was talking again.    
  
  
     “And once I disappear-”  
  
  
     This isn’t at all what she wanted. Jason Dean couldn’t die here. Not like this, not a suicide, and not on this damned football field.Her eyes and nose stung.  
  
  
     Panic clawed into her gut with sharp, sharp talons as he sighed softly and turned an eerie grin on her. “-Clean up the mess down here.”  
  
  
      Veronica Sawyer felt a force so strong slam into every fiber of her being that she reeled–- because something pleading and unfamiliar touched JD’s face.  
  
  
     “Our love is god.” A pause. He was looking for confirmation. Validation, compliance, or condolence, in her. Something she couldn’t give him. Because it wasn’t true.  
  
  
     She loved JD. But he was no god. He was nothing.  
  
  
     And now, he was going to turn into a early preview of the Fourth of July, unnoticed and forgotten, on the Westerburg High football field.  
  
  
     “Our love is god.” He repeated, fingers tightening over the bomb.  
  
  
     He realized shortly after her, that she was not going to comply.  His smile fell into some sort of panic, eyes going round. “Our love is God.”  
  
  
     Veronica swallowed, nails digging into the pale skin of her palms, still stained and wet with oil. The second of silence between them was endless.   
  
  
     “Say hi to-”  
  
  
     Abruptly, JD was knocked off of his feet with all the force of a functioning freight train. With a growling cry, his grasp on the bomb slipped, and it bounced several feet away.  
  
  
     Time froze, slowing so intensely Veronica could see everything in the field around them. A round police officer was wrapping an iron grip around JD’s arms, whose eyes were too wide and hysterical. Several more officers were sprinting onto the field, and Veronica watched slow motion as they came from the school building with red faces and guns and batons drawn. They had both been so wrapped up in JD’s epic final goodbye, that they hadn’t noticed them until it was too late.  
  
  
     Veronica leaped backwards, and when she moved it was as if the spell was lifted, everything exploding around her into chaos and shouting. She landed backwards, thin fingers instinctively clawing into the dry grass to get away. JD was roaring, inhuman and demonic in his rage, as he planted his foot into the officer’s shin.  
  
  
     The man yelped and released him.  Jason stumbled several feet forwards, closer to the bomb.  
  
  
     Veronica remembered screaming, the horrible sound tearing her throat raw. JD’s eyes widened, and the officer managed to reclaim the collar of his trench coat to yank him another foot back.  
  
  
     And then the bomb went off.


	2. Chapter 2

     “It’s the 90’s, kid, where’s your sense of… inventive evolution?”   
     The wiry man that sat behind the familiar mahogany desk that stood proudly in the middle of the room in front of JD did not smile. In fact, he hardly reacted at all, save a dry blink of his unwavering eyes and the faintest twitch of his strangely thick mustache. Instead of answering the boy leaning back with his arms pointed in a steeple above his chest on the other side of his desk, he asked his own question. “Jason Dean, how long have you been here?”   
     “In your office? We’re going on a solid 32 minutes.” JD felt a wicked smirk twist onto his lips as he pressed the steeple of his fingers against his mouth and waited for a reaction from his therapist.   
     As predicted, he didn’t get even a peek of one. “No, Jason, at the Denniside Institution for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.”   
     “Is that what you consider this place, Larry?” The black haired boy found himself grinning, his back popping faintly as he finally leaned out of his chair across the wiry man’s desk, finger tracing a bronze nameplate that read, ‘Dr. O’Hair’ in engraved letters.   
     “You know how I feel about you calling me that, Jason.”   
     “I know, Doc, I know. It’s just– the title doesn’t make much sense– you know?”        
     JD waved his hands enthusiastically as he spoke, squinting slightly with one eye.   
     Dr. O’Hair sighed heavily, as if he just knew some stupid shit was about to be said between them. When he spoke, his droning voice was weighted. “And why is that, Jason?”  
     “You just don’t have much hair, is all.” His smile was brilliant. When he spoke the last word, it popped from his lips with all of the smug satisfaction of a boy who knew he wouldn’t face consequence for his words. “Doc.” He made the ‘C’ of it very, very sharp.  
     After a short silence, Dr. O’Hair rubbed his bloodshot eyes.   
     “Jason Dean–” He began, and rolled his chair back noisily before wrenching open a drawer on his desk. From it he retrieved a manilla file, which was nearly spilling with all sorts of papers and bound with two or three rubber bands. “–You have been a patient in this facility since 1989, for about two years now. According to your receiving nurse, you arrived with severe burns on the left side of your body, all of which from your attempted suicide on the…” His eyes scanned small words that Jason fruitlessly craned his neck to catch a glimpse of. “…Football field of a ‘Westerburg High School’.”  
      “Suicide?” There was obvious playful shock in the tone of his rueful voice.   
     He gave the boy no satisfaction with humoring his sarcasm. “Via bomb, of all things.”  
     “I have a soft spot for fireworks.”   
     “You ‘fought viciously with authorities on site and attempted to throw yourself into harm’s way’.” The exhausted man rattled on, sounding metallic and robotic in a way that made JD’s fingers twitch with some unexplained, hateful yearning. “Not to mention the ‘several packs of temperature sensitive explosives set under the gym’s bleachers,-”  
     “The thermals, yeah.”  
     “-where the entire student body was gathered for a pep rally’.”   
      “I have less of a soft spot for the sports season.”   
     Another silence between them as Dr. O’Hair took a moment to pluck a ballpoint pen from his desk and scrawl down some messy notes in a notepad. God, JD hated that. The stupid notes.   
      “You know, Larry,” He began, folding his arms over the back of his head and returning to lean back in his seat in a fashion that caused it to dip back a bit. “You could probably write a novel with all the notes you write.”   
     Again, ignored. Irritation swept JD by storm, causing his cocky smile to fall as if it’s puppet strings where snipped. “And after two years of institutionalization, you continuously fail to show any progress.”   
     “Well, according to good ol’ Uncle Sam, I’m not getting out anyways.”   
     “So then, you’re aware of it?”  
     “What?” JD’s voice had lost all humor, now flat and dry as the Sahara.   
      “You’re coherent of the fact that you need the help, but knowingly refuse to partake in therapy?” There wasn’t even any curiosity in the doctor’s voice– only empty, knowing repetition that mocked JD endlessly.   
     For once, Jason had nothing to say.   
     “What would you say you’ve accomplished since your admittance, Jason?”  
     Still, no answer. The silence stretched on and on– and as the doctor expected, JD broke. “A whole cast of new friends, and a perky can-do attitude?”   
     O’Hair scribbled further into his notes, before in the horrible quiet turning his eyes back onto the manilla folder. “What’s her name?”   
     “I beg your pardon?”  
     “The girl that was found with you, Jason. What is her name?”  
     “Bethany O’Hair.”   
     The doctor bristled coldly, teeth finally clenching as his jaw tightened under his stubble. “Answer my question, Jason, and we’ll end the session for today.”  
     That offer was too enticing to pass up, but stubbornly JD crossed his arms and angrily smirked at the ceiling for a long, long time before answering.         “…Veronica. Her name is Veronica Sawyer.”  
     “Is she important to you?” The Doctor spit the question suddenly in Jason’s direction, and he rocked back on his heels.   
     “You said that was the last question.”  
     “Did you love her?”  
     Jason was again back to smiling, as if the doctor had somehow slipped up and given him the foothold to put back on his conniving air. “Love her?”   
     O’Hair nodded, and his grey speckled mustache twitched. For a moment, as he scrutinized the untold way JD’s eyes fell to the floor and his mouth turned into a frown, he tricked himself into believing he had made some sort of breakthrough.   
     “Not half as much as I love you, Larry.”  
     The doctor’s frustrated groan was so obvious and loud that it nearly drowned JD as he dissolved into a puddle of snickers. “Get out.” He spit, whatever thin twine of patience he had maintained clearly severed as his hands went up to rub his tired eyes.   
     “Can do, Doc.” Jason gladly stood onto the obnoxious, checker printed carpeting of the office, his hands raised as if in innocence or surrender. His white tennis shoes, which matched the loose fitting white t-shirt that hung off of his collarbones, squeaked against each other as he pivoted to get the hell out of there.   
     He had gotten as far as the door with his peeling grin before the doctor had his last say.   
     “She hasn’t visited you, since you’ve been admitted?” JD knew that the poison that laced the grown man’s words was not accidental.  
     As intended, he threw his chin back to the man over a stiffened shoulder and narrowed his eyes.   
     “…No, she hasn’t.”   
     “Well then,” Now, it was the doctor who was smiling. “With that, please return to the main hall.” 


	3. Chapter 3

     “And you’re sure everything’s okay?” The voice on the other end of the receiver crackled, raising an octave in nervous uncertainty. At this, Veronica felt her eyes roll and a faint smile play on the very corners of her pressed lips. The clunky cell phone in her right hand felt heavy, so she switched it over to her left shoulder, pressing it between the bone and her ear.  
     “Martha, come on. I’m fine. It was just a… fender-bender.”  
     “You said it was a head on collision!”  
     She swallowed a bit, but her tone was light when she spoke again. “On a scooter.”  
     “They admitted you into a hospital!”  
     Her giggle was nervous and not one bit confident. “For one little night.”  
     “Betty Finn wants to know if there was–” Martha’s voice stopped in it’s constant stream of words just long enough to turn into a whisper. “– alcohol –” She kept the word hushed like some sort of curse, before returning to her regular speech patterns. “– involved?”  
     “What- Martha– No.” She sighed a bit, rubbing her temple briefly before turning in her cluttered kitchen and sidestepping to peek out of the dusting window to the street, where her moped was parked in the apartment complex parking lot… in scraps. “God, no. What? No.”  
     “No?” The girl on the other end of the line asked, doubtingly.  
     “No.”  
     “Well, okay… We’re just worried about you, Veronica.” We. Veronica knew damned good and well that meant Martha, her parents, Betty, and anyone else that decided to stay behind in Sherwood, Ohio. “At Duke University, and everything. Living the big life!”  
     The sigh that Veronica offered was kind– understanding. “…I know, Martha. I miss you too.”  
     Her perceptive nature made Martha swallow thickly. “It’s crazy, not having you home.”  
     “Hey now, don’t you go getting emotional. I’ll start snotting.”  
     As predicted, this caused an absurd giggle to bubble from Martha’s lips. “Gross.”  
     “I know.”  
     An unmistakable silence, an awkward silence. Neither wanted to end the call, having missed the other unmistakably. Hell, it was always soothing to hear from Martha– she was a worthy friend. A /loyal/ friend.  
     She had been there unwaveringly, after the incident Senior year. No matter how much shit was thrown her direction, Martha placed herself directly in front of the fan.  
     Shortly after JD was rushed to the hospital and arrested, the truth came out. Well, partially the truth. Word about the bomb spread pretty fast. It was only a matter of time before Martha came forth, preaching to every open ear what she suspected Jason had done to her ‘suicidal’ classmates.  
     It wasn’t a stretch to pin it all on him.  
     A real investigation had been started. Town wide panic settled in, and what was initially jeering stares and off-colored titles like ‘That girl with the psycho boyfriend.’ turned quickly to ‘The brave girl who took down that psycho in the football field!’  
     Like magic, she was relieved of the blame for her crimes, and all of the weight was placed on JD’s shoulders. She never looked up his trial. She never kept tabs on him. She… couldn’t.  
     She didn’t know why, but she was unable to face him. Unable to revisit him, in whatever punishment they’d earned him, together. Too cowardly, to show her face.  
     At night sometimes, if she was very still, she could feel him beside her. As if they were just seventeen again, him peacefully asleep on that musty old couch in his basement with his head rested on her shoulder. A peaceful moment among many, many chaotic and violent ones.  
     She forced herself to forget them by morning. It was too much, she knew that.  
     “Veronica, are you there?”  
     She snapped to, realizing she must have become lost in her own train of thought. “Huh?”  
     “… I asked if you had any casts?”  
     “Just a sling, and some bandage. A splint.” As she spoke, her eyes dropped to her right arm briefly, admiring the doctor’s handiwork as she began squeezing through a tower of dirty dishes towards her apartment’s front door. Martha said something else, but Veronica was too busy propping it open with her shoulder and sliding through it to hear her. She paused, took a wild guess at what she said, and added a vague, “Oh yeah?”  
     “Yeah!” Bingo. “It’s going to be really great to see everyone again.”  
     Shit. Now she was lost. “Yeah, yeah, see them all again at theeee….”  
     “…Class reunion.”  
     “Right, right!”  
     A very awkward silence stretched between them again.  
     By now, the warm sun had begun licking Veronica’s cheeks with silken tendrils as she stepped into the sidewalk, making her way over to her mailbox down the lane. The heat was nice– it always seemed freezing, in her complex. And the vastness of the outdoors was welcome relief from her cramped living space. With all of the law textbooks, stray papers, and fast food bags, it seemed like there was little actual room for Veronica in the apartment.  
     As she reached the mailbox, she re-stuffed the clunky piece of technology into her shoulder again and fumbled with her good arm to get the keys into the slot. “I’ll try to make it, but school is really consuming, and-”  
     “Veronica, I think it’d be… really good for you.” There was a touch of doubting concern that Veronica didn’t like. Something almost parental. She slid down the mailbox lid, and brushed her fingers across the crisp edges of envelopes before plucking them out of the hot tin microwave and absentmindedly rummaging through them as she used her shoulder to close the lid. “…We could watch the Princess Diaries, like we used to.”  
     This brought a smile to her lips. “That sounds really, really great right now.”  
     One of them stood out to Veronica potently, for some reason. The paper was rougher than the other sleek envelopes, and it was handwritten instead of printed. A personal letter. She thumbed it for a moment, before using her lips to awkwardly turn it over to see it’s return address.  
     Denniside Institution for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.  
     Her fingers felt suddenly cold– she froze at her own doorstep.  
     “…I need to go.”  
     “What?!” Martha’s humble voice turned suddenly frantic, but Veronica silenced her quickly by bringing the hunk of metal and plastic away from her face, inhaling a shaky breath, and without ever taking her eyes off of the letter pressing the end button.


	4. Chapter 4

     “Jason Dean, stop that.”  
     JD’s eyebrows shot up nearly to the moon, eyes widening as the most shit eating smile in all of history spread across his lips. The cheerio pinched between two of his fingers, which he had been previously ready to toss across the main lounge, rolled back into the deep valley of his palm.  
     The nurse who had addressed him pursed her lips and rolled her cart by where he sat, off to the side of the open and colorless room, in a tall stool that leaned against the wall. He offered a wriggle of his brows once she passed, and another patient whom was on his hands and knees on the floor a few feet away from JD whined low in his throat.  
     “Sorry Slim-Jim, you heard the nurse. No more of the cheerio game today.” He watched with a feline smile as the boy on the floor writhed at his words, his ghostly blue eyes scanning the yellowed tile for any sign of a crumb or two.  
     JD loved playing the Cheerio Game. Otherwise known as the Jimmy Game, the CG was a great time passer for any bored psychotic in the farm, and a great ice breaker. Fun for all ages, whether you’re alone or at a family gathering– what have you! The rules were very simple.  
     Step one, you attract the attention of ‘The Jimmy’. Once you have that golden boy’s empty eyes on you, you toss a cheerio. See, it’s easy to sacrifice a cheerio because they’re bland and awful and only funny farms bother feeding them to anyone. No loss. No matter how you throw the cheerio, without fail, Jimmy will slounch off of the lounge couch and bend over to eat it.  
     Step three is the fun part– throw another. A little bit closer to you this time. Step four, watch him crawl to eat it. Repeat! In the event ‘The Jimmy’ gets too close to where you sit at your ever righteous perch, toss one very far away, and start the game over.  
     Usually, the game ended when the nurses came through.  
     “JD?” Jimmy finally resigned himself, his constantly distant eyes raising to Jason’s general direction but looking past him into the wall.  
     “Nope, that’s it.” JD shook his head, revelling in his dopy bewilderment.  
     “But you have-” Jimmy stood shakily, pointing a finger to JD’s palm of cheerios in one sloppy motion.  
     In response, Jason promptly shoved every cheerio in his hand into his mouth. A valiant move, if he did say so himself. A true sacrifice in the name of Nurse Samuel’s law. The rancidly bland taste of wheat filled his mouth.  
     “…Oh.” Jimmy seemed momentarily dazed, as if unsure as to why Jason would do that.  
     “Don’t worry, Slim-Jim.” Jason managed through an absolutely full mouth. “Tomorrow.”  
     “…Tomorrow.” The boy placed a nearly colorless hand on his own freckled cheek, shaggy red curls falling over his lifeless eyes. He whispered the word once, then again, then many many more times as he turned nearly robotically, and dragged his toes back towards the lounge couch. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow….”  
     This left JD without entertainment, which was a problem.  
     He swallowed thickly, smacking his lips, and then cast two lidded eyes across the lounge again. It was a sterile room, and had always reminded him of a hospital. It would look clean if it wasn’t for the carpet, which was worn down to the nubs in front of the couch, and the yellowing tiles. In the center of the room was one couch, an ugly floral printed thing in a soft yellow, and in front of that was a bulking television set. Several patients were crammed like sardines into that couch, and for the most part it was never truly empty. The room was large and bland, and the orderlies liked it that way.  
     JD did not.  
     To pass the time, he fumbled in his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Two left– he would have to get more soon. That was a problem. He pressed one firmly between his lips, and used a stray match on the rough, sandpapery wall to light it. He closed his eyes– inhaled.  
     A ringing in his ears he previously hadn’t noticed bled away into the room around him, and for the first time since he’d walked in, he could hear the sounds of the television and the other men.  
     Euphoria hit him familiarly as nicotine nursed his body better than any orderly. He let smoke slip from between his teeth for just a moment, a blissful smile teasing the corners of his slightly parted lips. Then, he slid off of the stool and headed over to the couch.  
     “Deacon, Stubbs, Slim-Jim.” He greeted, pausing at the last name to pat Jimmy under the chin, who cooed and smiled emptily at his touch.  
     The other two men looked at him slowly, and neither of them were smiling. Tough crowd.  
     “What are we watching?” He grinned, placing a hand on the arm of the couch and leaning against it. “Three’s Company?”  
     “No, ‘Bosom Buddies’.” It was Deacon who finally spoke up, the remote in one hand and a cigarette in the other, which at this point had turned into one long, cylindrical ash. Deacon was a… dark man. Older than Jason by a 10 years or so, he spent most of his time smoking and scribbling with slender hands and graceful slight of finger in a small leatherbound book he kept in his shirt pocket, just behind his pack of cigs. He was very, very tall– though his face came across as gentle, there was an unmistakable sadness that filled the room whenever he entered. Sometimes JD referred to him as ‘Casper’, because whenever he stood looking out of a window or staring with soft eyes at the floor, it was like being in the room with a wistful phantom. He was awkwardly proportioned, his long arms hanging like ropes at his sides– but he always stood with his back straight. JD found that fascinating, wondered how someone could be so /beaten/ and so /proud/ at the same time.  
     “Ah, so you two finally came to terms?” He snickered, one eyebrow raising sharply into the lines of his forehead. Jimmy tilted his head as if he did not at all understand the joke, and Deacon managed a soft, weary exhale. It was none other than Stubbs himself that suddenly shot up from the couch, his arms shooting out wide at either side of his round body.  
     “OFF, Baconface! Before I-”  
     Jason felt a slow sort of anger unsettle the nicotine calm in the pit of his stomach. His eyes ran from the man’s face, to his chest, then down his arm– his fingerless palms stuck out like already curled fists. He didn’t remember how exactly the man had lost all of his fingers– some kind of accident or something. He didn’t care.  
     “Be careful, Hugh..” His voice was nothing but a growl, and his shoulders had gone rigid. “One more… ‘violent outburst’ like last time and they’ll put you in a pink room for sure.” He savored the word, rolling his hands out in front of himself as if ‘violent outburst’ was really a new car or a million dollars.  
     Stubbs rethought his little mid-evening boxing session, glancing at the nurse whom was already looking with raised brows in their direction before slowly hunkering back down into the couch. JD was practically glowing at his submission.  
     When Deacon spoke, his voice was plaintive but somehow very dry. “You should go.”  
     JD couldn’t really agree more. In fact, they had rather bothered him. He nodded, his hooked brows lowering over his eyes a bit, and then in a gesture that followed his gliding hands pivoted his body around.  
     Shit. Now how was he going to get cigarettes?  
     The darkened boy was still grinning a crooked sneer as he picked through his own brain, trying to process how in fact to feed his addiction. Sure, cigarette dispensary was next Monday– Jason could not wait until next Monday for more cigarettes. He’d lose his mind before then!  
     He took a moment to chuckle at his own wit.  
     The rest of the men in the room where just as silent as the three stooges on the couch– it was a matter of which one he could use, really.  
     As a clever plan (If he did say so himself, which he did.) began to collect from the particles of thought in his head, his bottomless brown eyes landed on the slender silhouette of a blonde man sipping a warm drink in a paper cup by the barred window. He whispered the word “Perfect.” aloud, and then sucked his teeth, before heading over to the small table across the lounge.  
     “Duncan!” As he tossed his hands up in superficial greeting, a pair of heavy eyes shifted and landed on his shoulders. “Sitting alone, champ?” He didn’t ask permission before grabbing the rickety wooden chair opposite to the still wordless man and turning it around, sitting in it backwards and resting his arms on it’s creaking back.  
     “I am.” The tired man sighed, tilting his nose downwards and taking a small sip of his coffee. He was pale, and the glasses that rest on his slender nose did not hide the red rims of his eyes, or the lines that only come to men who are exhausted eternally. Soft, wheat colored curls fell over his forehead– as if they suddenly bothered him, he used the back of his fingers and flicked them back upwards. All this accomplished was a very bouncy display that succeeded in exactly nothing.  
     There was a very awkward silence.  
     “… You uh, you aren’t really very chatty, are you?” JD swallowed a bit roughly, following the man’s eyes to the barred windows, which looked out over a bleak courtyard.  
     The blonde turned his chin over in a languid way, entirely unhurried. He moved as a middled aged trophy wife who’s made herself to many glasses of vodka on ice did, loose and sluggish and nearly drunk on air. “Why are you talking to me?” And with that, he placed his cup tenderly on the tabletop and picked up the daily paper, opening it in his lap and glancing down instead of in JD’s direction.  
     Slowly, Jason reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved his last cigarette, his own down to a stump at this point. Tantalizingly, he slid it across the tabletop. This caught Duncan’s attention– his eyes lowered to it in that final way his gaze fell when he wanted something. With a very thick double meaning under his words, JD felt a wicked smirk peel his lips and asked in a low voice, “You want this, Duncan?”  
     There was a tense moment, in which you could cut the thick air with a knife– and then, in a graceful sweep, the blonde plucked the cigarette off of the table and popped it between his lips. “You have my attention.”  
     This brought any tension out of JD’s body, and he took a moment to turn his chair back around and then lean back in it, hands behind his head and feet loudly clunking onto the tabletop. The brackish liquid inside of Duncan’s thin paper cup quaked. Instead of getting to his point, he yawned and shrugged. “You’re kinda hateful, huh? You could probably hate anything.”  
     “Hmm…” The man actually took the time to think about it, unlit cigarette hanging over his chin. It bobbed as he spoke, his voice smooth and gentle and pleasant– but weighted. Always weighted. “I could probably even dislike the sky, if I really tried.” JD offered up a match, and held it out to the tender man, who took it without removing his lidded eyes from the window.  
     “Could ya dislike yourself?” He added, watching him light the match on the soles of his own shoes. He’d never thought of that.  
     “Always.” Duncan sighed, rolling his chin upwards and to Jason a bit. He let smoke drift from his parted lips for only a moment before swallowing the cloud whole.  
     “That’ll make you sick.”  
     “Never.”  
     JD ignored this, instead finding a question that in his opinion was much more interesting. As he asked, he brought his feet off of the table, leaning forwards and propping himself up by the elbows. “Could you hate me?”  
     Without smiling, Duncan thought for a long time, in which JD tapped his foot impatiently to the rhythm of a song the other man did not know. “…I have a hard time…” He finally decided to himself, bringing his light out of his mouth. He held it in a feminine way, between two fingers to his side.  
     JD felt a sickeningly delighted smile bloom over his pearled teeth. “Disliking me?”  
     Duncan frowned. “No. Disliking the sky.”  
     Another dragging silence.  
     “What do you want from me, Jason?”  
     He sensed that this was his final chance at getting to his point, his last cigarette and bargaining chip now half ash. “Okay, alright.” He shifted slightly, leaning even further into the table. “I want your antidepressants.” When Duncan stiffened in his chair, he spoke quickly. “I know you didn’t take them. You never do. I need them, and I need them now.”  
     “Why should I give them to you?” There was an obvious touch of contempt in his once pleasant voice, and he only looked at JD from the corner of his thickly lashed eye. His glasses flashed as he reached out a suddenly shaking hand to grab his coffee.  
     He was being defiant. JD hated that in a person. “… Because if you don’t, I’ll drop a hint to Dr. O’Hair upstairs that the only reason you took that cigarette is because you wanted to remember what the inside of Deacon’s mouth tasted like.”  
     Ash from Duncan’s cigarette fell into his lap, and burned at his pants. He didn't seem to notice as he turned with eyes that were too wide to completely face Jason for the first time. The whites around his brown irises showed, making him look like a wild animal in a corner– his breathing had gone suddenly jagged. “My god-” It was only a choked whisper, an afraid whisper.  
     Gotcha. He knew his trap had ensnared the man. He knew Duncan was terrified– this exhilarated JD. “You said you had made progress with your little ‘condition’.” He continued, black hair falling over his face. He glared up through it. “Why, that doesn’t sound like progress to me.”  
     Duncan watched in horror as an awful, loose edge began to twist over the younger boys features, making him look manic and unstable. It was something he’d never seen in JD. Not personally.  
     When he finally did move, he went with shaking hands and pulled four small white pills from his shirt pocket. He glanced around, and then pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.  
     As he passed them to Jason he was nearly frantic, making sure no orderly saw. “Here. Here. Just–”  
     “Atta-kid.” Triumphant, JD popped his neck a bit and leaned back in his chair. He could feel his features smooth out as he felt the weight of each pill tug at his pocket fabric a bit. It was reassuring, really. He killed the silence before it had the chance to grow, this time, as Duncan took his cup and then pressed the nearly vanished cigarette into his mouth– he realized he was smoking it again, caught himself, and then in some desperate attempt to prove himself dropped it right into his drink to put the damned thing out.  
     “I am recovering. I really am.” He assured– but JD wasn’t sure who he was talking to at that point, really. He didn’t particularly care.  
     “… You know, I used to know two homosexuals.” He offered, and he watched Duncan relax slightly at his casual tone.  
     “Really?” His eyes widened, nearly hopefully. “What happened there?”  
     “They both killed themselves.”  
     And with that, he winked at Duncan, before standing up and turning his back on the man.  
     He watched as Deacon stood from the lounge couch and stretched his lengthy arms behind himself slightly, heading over to the hallway which lead to the bedrooms. Perfect.  
     He had the pills– step one was complete. Now, onto step two.  
     With that thought, he walked away from the table and rounded the couch, following the scarecrow of a man out.


	5. Chapter 5

"Let’s consider your life a story, Mrs. Sawyer.“   
     Veronica swallowed roughly, her throat and eyes feeling about as dry as her papery tongue as she cast an eye across the quiet, clean room. It was a plain room, square and almost mockingly comforting– there where three large windows on the back wall, just behind the couch where Veronica lay. Out of these windows blazed in a cold, white light that made it impossible to make out the urban landscape outside of the apartment complex in which her psychoanalyst lived. Somehow, the entirety of the room seemed devoid of warmth– sentient in it’s distant contempt for her. She wondered in a precise bout of grim humor if this is what it was like to be a permanent resident of a hospital.   
     This office, with it’s couch and box of tissues and two smooth modern chairs made Veronica feel… ghostly.   
     Her aforementioned counselor, a tired woman named Bernadette whom wore only white and wore tired lines under her eyes like bandages, went on calmly. Her smooth voice made the room feel even more ethereal and unreal to Veronica. "What would you consider the conflict?”  
     "As in, the antagonist?“ She shifted uncomfortably, tucking her fingers under her arms to fend them from the unmistakable chill of the room.   
     "Well, if you consider the conflict in your story to be man versus man, then yes.” Bernadette adjusted the white glasses over her black cheeks, delicate hands curling at the knuckle to push them farther up the bridge of her nose. “Whom would this antagonist be, in your opinion, Veronica?”  
     It didn’t take the college student long at all to derive an answer. “One in particular comes to mind.”   
     "I see.“ The doctor smiled briefly, but it was gritty and through clenched teeth. She knew exactly whom the girl lounging on her couch was referring to– she’d known Veronica for a long time, now. "JD, he’s still the antagonist of your life?”   
     "… In a way, yeah.“   
     "You know,” The doctor began, popping her neck before continuing. Her heels stayed perfectly planted to the muted grey of the thin carpeting, stark in contrast to the bleak tones around them. “In a very prominent way, and considering what you went through, to suggest that on a daily basis you remain paranoid about-”  
     "That’s not it.“ Veronica propped herself up on an elbow, no longer able to lay down. Embarrassed by her own urgency, she allowed a curious moment to pass between them before forcing herself onto her back, eyes going to the bright, blank windows. "When– When I was with JD… We- We assumed this… /collective identity./”  
     "And what would you say this identity was? What did it represent?“  
     "To him… revenge, maybe.” She sat in silence for a long time after this, and the other woman did not interrupt her. “No, that’s wrong… We were… righteous intervention.”  
     "Righteous intervention.“ Bernadette repeated, nearly awestruck. "That’s quite a way to describe a relationship.”  
     Veronica said nothing.  
     Wearily, the doctor continued without her, trying to ease the mood by adding, “I’m glad you decided to talk to me about Jason again. It’s been a long time.”  
     "…Yeah, it has.“ There was a thick meaning under her words– it was unclear whether it was regret, or guilt, or something much deeper.   
     "So then, to summarize that, you would say that not only Jason Dean, but what he personified– That is the conflict in your life?”  
     "…Do you have another opinion?“ Veronica raised a brow, rectangular reflections of light from the windows resting on her glassy eyes as she turned her chin towards them. Outside of the window, the only thing she could see was a single electricity line. A bedraggled, scraggly pigeon with molting feathers sat on it entirely motionless, it’s leftover color washed out and sickly.   
It stared her directly in the eyes.   
     "We’ll save that for next time, hmm? Our hour is almost up.” Even her own counselor seemed relieved that the session was coming to a close. Veronica again internally pondered what this meant about her personally. “But first,” There was an unbridled fascination in the stern woman’s voice that caught the girl’s attention immediately. “First, tell me about this letter you received in the mail.”  
     And with that, Veronica inhaled as deeply as her lungs would expand, resisted the urge to scratch the inside of the cast on her arm, and began to fill her doctor in on the only thing in a long time that had brought her back to the days filled with ‘Righteous Intervention.’


	6. Chapter 6

     Needles to say, Deacon was not thrilled when JD slipped into his bedroom and locked the door behind him. Not thrilled at all. Not even one bit. Which of course, Jason expected, and using his clearly superior social skills, managed to forgive the scarecrow for his frankly unwelcoming hosting knowledge.  
     "What do you want with me, Dean?" The lanky man took a step back and leaned against the wall in-between the two bland beds that filled most of the room's space. His voice retained some of it's usual plaintive irritation and defeat, which pleased JD immensely. Also irritated him. Jason thought briefly about how complex he found himself. "You followed me from the lounge?"  
     "Followed is a... harsh word." His smile was fiendish at least, and mocking at best. "I'd like to think of it as-"  
     "So you followed me." Deacon took a second to sigh very heavily, before stooping over and clearing things off of the bed on his side of the room.  
     "Okay, I followed you. Don't I get, ah--" He swallowed, waving his hands a bit and hooking his brow. "--Props-- for effort?"  
     "For following me?"  
     JD's patience was running short with this sad, pestilence of a walking toothpick. "Okay, let's just- Forget about the following as a whole- Kay?"  
     The wistful man watched with a nearly analytic eye as Jason's short temper flared and then vanished. Entirely vanished. When he spoke, he witnessed JD go from fanatical and intense to lax and stretching like a cat against the wall in moments. "Do you mind if I have a smoke?"  
     JD was taken back that he was polite enough to ask. He appreciated that, in a strange way. "...Go ahead."  
     Deacon almost smiled. Almost. “You want one?” He was never above sharing what he owned-- and this was partly because Deacon, despite his constant heartache, truly believed that karma would one day tilt in his favor and make all these kinds deeds worth his while.  
     As touching as all that was, JD stoutly declined. “Actually, that’s why I’m here, Casper.”  
     “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” He lit his match and cradled the cigarette between his lips tenderly. “I’ve never been a fan of cartoons.”  
     “Hey, at least he was a friendly ghost.”  
     This did finally bring some life to Deacon’s hollowed face, and his chuckle was quiet but honest. “What makes you think I’ll give you my pack? It’s not even close to dispensary day.”  
     “Because,’ Jason was entirely confident in what he said, and took this pride under his belt as he pushed off of the wall and paced to the barred window on wall that stood opposite to the door. He leaned up to it very close, nose scrunching against the glass and the bars pulling his cheeks back over his teeth. This caused his voice to sound almost comedic when he asked, “Hey, didn’t you try to throw yourself out of this thing once?” He tapped the metal with his knuckle.  
     Silence.  
     “Anyways,” he went on, eyebrows lifting in a gesture that summed up the phrase, ‘Oh well’. “You’ll give me what's left of that pack, because they aren’t for me.”  
     Deacon perked immediately, indicating this put him greatly at ease. Rude. “Who are they for?”   
     Jason let the silence between them grow for a ridiculously long time before turning from the window and returning to his place against the locked door. “I believe you remember your little, uh-” He weighed his words carefully. ‘-pal? Duncan.”  
     The man’s face fell, and his lips parted. “D-Duncan?” As he said the name, his legs seemed to move without him willing them, bringing him to stand over Jason. “What about Duncan? Have you been-” JD’s body stiffened against the wall as Deacon’s face grew hard and he took two steps to trap the smaller boy there. “-Have you been fucking with him?”  
     “Woahhhh there, Tiger.” His hands raised in surrender immediately, and the inflection to his laughter was nothing short of mocking. “Protective much?”  
     Deacon fell right into his manipulative game, immediately backing up and rubbing his eyes. “No- He... “ Slowly, he sat back down. “It’s been a long time since he spoke to me.” He seemed to regain his composure some, back unwillingly straightening as his lengthy fingers pinched the bridge of his prominent nose. “What did- What did he ask for?”  
     If anything delighted JD in this moment, it was Deacon’s distress. Entirely uncharacteristic, utterly revealing-- it gave him new life. Absolutely refreshing. “He’s been ‘aching’ for a light, but ‘doesn’t want O’Hair to know.’ ”  He used his fingers to make quotes, implying these words came from Duncan’s mouth. “For whatever reason, he said it was ‘yours and his secret.’ “  
     Now, ordinarily, Jason was entirely aware that Deacon would never in a million years be so easily tricked.  
     However-- he always had a knack for finding what real weaknesses folks kept locked up. Usually, it had to do with their loved ones. Deacon was a shining example of this, poor sap.  
     “Our secret?” His mouth parted into a soft ‘o’. Desperate, horrible hope was scribbled across his thick brows, and the way his eyes went to the door as if he could just see Duncan waiting outside for his answer.  
     “Your secret.”  
     Deacon took a second to redirect his gaze towards that windowsill. You could see some kind of painful memory resting squarely on the tip of his chin, weighing down his entire frame as his head hung in defeat. “...Yes, of course he can have them.”  
     “Great, let me-”  
     This brought some ration into the weighted man’s face. “Shouldn’t I give them to him myself?”  
     JD was quick on his feet, waving his hands to distract from the point before plainly explaining. “If he wanted that, he would have come here.” The silence was too risky, so he smothered it. “Oh! And uh-- these are yours.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the antidepressants, crossing the space between them quickly and letting each one trickle into Deacon’s palm as he outstretched his wide, long fingers. “He said it’s, ‘Apology for the mistake he made’, or-- something like that. I can’t really remember.” He shrugged, and watched too intently as the words reduced the other man to merely staring at the pills with wide, conflicted eyes.  
     Deacon did not notice his ‘enthusiasm’, and was too ensnared with his own confusion and thoughts to say so much as another word to JD as he smirked and patted the smokes into his shirt pocket.


	7. Chapter 7

     “Babe, you okay? Have another one of those nightmares?”  
     Veronica’s chest heaved-- a cold sweat prickled uncomfortably just under her skin. She was having a hard time catching her breath and couldn’t immediately answer.  
     “Veronica?”  
     “N-No, I’m okay.” She clutched her own ribs, as if for only a moment she had been unsure if they still lay under her exposed torso. “I’m okay.”  
     The boy in bed next to her frowned softly, reaching across the small space in his bed between them and using his thumb to tuck a frenzied strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She sighed, and leaned into his fingers, which were pleasantly cool on his skin. “...What happened?”  
     “Nightmare.”  
     A silence stretched between them.  
     The boy sighed, black hair falling over his analytical brown gaze. “I’m thinking, maybe you shouldn’t be taking those pain killers before bed. Maybe the doctor was wrong. Is it colliding with your other medications at all?”  
     She was still focused on steadying her breathing, but pacified his worry with an answer anyways. “No, my therapist made sure nothing was out of balance. It was just-- a nightmare.” She managed a clever if not cynical smile. “Maybe if you’re so worried, you shouldn’t have backed over me.”  
     This made him laugh-- a blossoming, earnest sound that filled the dark room with summer stars and dotting sunlight. “Look, I’m so sorry. We had just been studying all night, and I wasn’t even paying attention-- But hey, the drive to the hospital wasn’t half bad. Yeah?”  
     His hand rested on hers, and Veronica’s eyes were finally forced to meet the keen stare of the boy she slept beside. They stayed like that for a moment, just comforting the other with a simple touch. She felt immediately warm, all of the sudden.  
     “Maybe I should go back to my dorm.” She admitted finally, and as she shifted to get out of bed the blackhaired boy scrambled to catch her.  
     “Wait, what?! Don’t go-”  
     “Look, I just have a lot to think about right now.”  
     He was obviously deeply, deeply perturbed by her sudden urge to abort mission. “Look, if you go- I mean, maybe it’s better if you aren’t alone-”  
     “Pass me my shirt.”  
     He did so-- he knew better than to put reins on Veronica Sawyer. Hell, she was top of the class-- she could probably sue him out of his shitty dorm AND the truck he accidentally backed over her with. “But is this what’s best for you?”  
     This brought Veronica to a screeching halt, straightening her newly re-equipped shirt over her torso with her hand already nearly at the doorknob.  
     “...Listen… I just need to go home and be with my thoughts for a few hours, okay? I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”  
     He was put at ease by the well-practiced rationality in her smooth tone. “...Yeah. Yeah, okay. And if you need me, I’m right next door-- okay?”  
     “Of course, Will.” She gave him a weary smile-- it was all she had to offer. But he took it dotingly and stood up from the crowded bed space to take her in his arms. This was-- a great comfort, to Veronica.  
     She took a second to take in every inch and crevice of his face. ‘William.’ The thought came to her all at once.  
     Black hair, brown eyes-- even those dark circles. Though so very similar visually, Jason and he where the antithesis of one another. Where JD would throw his arms out and make a out of place comment, William would nod like an excited child and probably offer to carry your textbooks. JD was to Will as the moon was to the sun.  
     Both very dear-- and both entirely opposite.  
     She wanted to curse thinking like that-- wanted to tell herself that JD wasn’t a welcome resident in her mind anymore.  
     But that wasn’t an option.  
     “Veronica?” Will stood in the doorway as she stepped into the student parking lot, disheveled hair sticking up in several strange areas of his scalp. “I uh-- I love you. You’ll… be in class tomorrow, right?”  
     “...Right.”  
     But she lied, even as she stood there she knew she was lying to his sweet, almost parental face.  
     She had no intention of going to class tomorrow-- No, Veronica had much bigger plans. And step one would be to purchase a rental car.  
     “I love you too.” She offered him a smile, though it felt like plastic, and turned into the night to head to her dorm.


	8. Chapter 8

            "Jason Dean? The doctor is calling for you, it's time to wake up."   
  
             
            Like a teenager, Jason rolled over in his bed, covering his head with a pillow and paying no mind to the nurse desperately truing to wake him. "Jason," she persisted uncertainly,  at a loss. When he lurched into an upright position she flinched back, clutching her clipboard to her chest.   
  
  
           "What do you _want_?" he groaned, trying to rub the crust from his bad eye. Jason had always been more of a mid-afternoon person, and hey, everyone has flaws, right?  
  
            
            It wasn't her voice that answered. A shadow fell over the square of light in the doorway, and in a stern way it's own said, "I need you to _wake up._ Quickly."   
  
  
           O'Hair. He should have known. As his eyes adjusted, JD watched the doctor place a sympathetic hand on the girl's shoulder. Gently, he said, "Get yourself a coffee." She nodded, smiling gratefully to the man before making a hasty exit.   
  
  
           "A little young for you, isn't she?"   
  
  
           The doctor eyed him, before slipping off his glasses and cleaning the lenses on the forearm of his coat.  
  
  
           "Our session isn't for a couple hours." Jason urges, impatient with the silence. He scratches the back of his head some, stretching out like a cat and yawning.   
  
  
           "You have a visitor," is all O'Hair gives away, pointedly. As he nonchalantly sets his glasses back onto the hook of his nose, Jason just stares, hands falling into his lap. The doctor continues without elaborating, tapping a polished black shoe on the aluminum tile. "It'll need to be over before our session block, so we don't fall behind for the day."   
  
  
           The black haired man swallowed, audibly. "Someone's visiting me?"  
  
  
           There was something too _keen_ about the doctor's gaze, as if he were already scribbling down phantom notes to analyze later in private. After a moment, he turned to leave, Jason scrambling up from the bed to catch up. He took a second to run his fingers through his bedhead and and nervously lick his lips. The uneasy distress that knotted in the pit of his stomach was unfamiliar, and he stuffed his legs into a pair of sweats almost exclusively to hide his hands in his pockets.   
  
  
           He stumbled out into the hall and squinted against the harsh lights. "Who?"  
  
  
           O'Hair gave no answer, and while he was irritated, he accepted it. The pair walked past closed doors in silence for some time, Jason fidgeting with a piece of lent in his pocket. As they passed the lobby, he was unsurprised to see Duncan at his usual seat, staring out of the window with a cup of coffee resting between his hands.   
  
  
           That being said, it _was_ unusual to find _Deacon_ lingering nearby on the couch. Duncan was an early riser, but him? The television was on, but Deacon's eyes were glazed and unfocused. He wasn't watching it. Every few seconds he would glance at the blonde by the window, on the visible cusp of getting up to say something to him. As Jason and O'Hair neared the doors Deacon stood abruptly, startling Duncan as he made his way to the chair across from him.   
  
  
           What JD would give to hear that conversation. He guessed it was all about to hit the fan, after all. Took them long enough.   
  
  
           In the reception hall, the double doors to the Visiting Room seemed impending, and his pulse quickened in his own ears. He was suddenly aware of the fact his shirt was stained, and he only had socks on. Was it too late to go back to his room and grab shoes?   
  
  
           He knew who it was, of course, he was just... surprised? His dad hadn't visited since he was admitted, when he denounced him, probably afraid Jason would expose just what he'd been up to.   
  
  
           Like father, like son.   
  
  
           He hadn't seen him since, and wasn't sure he wanted to see him now.   
  
  
           Jason swallowed in lieu of coaxing his heart back down from his throat into his chest as the doors to the Visiting Room open and closed, swallowing _him_.   
  
  
          "JD."   
  
  
           He stopped hard.   
  
  
           He tried to speak, but found no words. Tried to move, and found no strength.   
  
  
           Two familiar, well set eyes met his as he just _stood_ , caught off guard and rocked to his core.   
  
  
           "... _Veronica_?"


	9. Chapter 9

     Oh, god. _His face_.  
     While Jason stared at Veronica, a strange sort of guard composing his lean face, she found herself frozen to the spot. Her stomach wrenched, awfully. He was taller, a little bit thinner. JD’s face had become more angular, and his jaw stronger than before. His eyes were the same-- brown and shadowed and very, very vulnerable in this moment-- but she couldn’t focus on them for long. She was rendered entirely unable to utter even a single word as her gaze scattered about the left side of his body.  
     Bile rose in her throat-- not of disgust, well, of Jason at least.  
     This had happened to him, this deformity, and she hadn’t even had a clue. She hadn’t had so much as a inkling, because she couldn’t bare to face him and what he was. What she was, alongside him.  
     The burns. Of all the things to cross Veronica’s mind, she had never let herself dwell on it. Never allowed her brain the breadth to analyze that moment that the officer let go, and he stumbled towards the bomb to throw himself on it, but the officer had caught him again.  
     It hadn’t been far enough away. Dear god, it hadn’t even be close to far enough.  
     His skin was plastic. The whole left side of his face, all the way down his neck-- and his arm. The left side of his face was several shades lighter than the right, and even though his burns had had upwards of two years to heal, you could see that the hair of his left eyebrow and lashes had only truly began to fill within the last few months. There was scarring along his jaw, as though maybe some sort of surgery had been performed, and the skin of his lower left arm was discolored a deep red in several places-- The fingers on his hand seemed thin, for some reason. The whole damned hand did, as if it was frailer than it’s match. A large portion of his ear was entirely missing-- that was the ear he used to put his cigarettes behind. She wasn’t sure why that came to mind.  
     Horror. Pity. Guilt.  
     To say Veronica thought these things would make no sense, because she wasn’t in the moment really even capable of processing thoughts. Only taking in every too-smooth inch of his face and throat and mutilated body.  
     Jason didn’t seem to notice; he was still stuck on her eyes. In fact, his own never left hers, watching as they darted across his body. He didn’t bother to take in the familiar volume to her hair, the way she pressed her lips thin when she worried, or the furrow of her carefully manicured brows. All things that had once haunted him, yes-- but he seemed to be entirely lost in that color in her eyes. The way her lashes curled over the orb, and how she must have spent time doing her makeup to come and see him. Her eyeliner was brown, and not black. He wasn’t sure why, but he really liked that..  
     His chest felt tight-- and any other emotion or body part was a flurry of sensation and static that made it impossible to process a clever thought.  
     It was his voice that snapped Veronica out of her spiraling shock. It was soft, unsettlingly so-- uncharacteristic. “You came.”  
     The way the words brimmed with some sort of delayed, distrusting surprise spelled it out for everyone in the room. He had never thought it would happen.  
     Her face was the first answered prayer out of many unanswered.  
     Still, as she ripped her eyes off of his marbled skin, there was a surge of familiarity and comfort that surged through her veins. Something that was begging for release.  
     She realized without ever forcing it, that she was smiling. Her throat tightened, her eyes went wide.  
     “I’m here.”  
     A silence, and then they both managed a choked, nearly giddish laugh.  
     “Ah-- here, here, sit-” Jason fumbled, taking several lengthy strides ahead and grabbing a chair from the table, yanking it out across the harsh tile with a metal scream. He ignored the sharp sound-- or maybe he was used to it, Veronica wasn’t sure. He presented the rickety seat to her as if escorting her to a car, shoulders still hunched in that unusual but charming way of his.  
     She took the seat, and when his fingers accidentally brushed her shoulder it felt like electricity. She wondered if he felt it, too.  
     He sat directly across from her, palms pressing down into the table’s metal surface and hair falling over his eyes as he tried suddenly to straighten his shirt, as if the wrinkles on it may offend her. His smile was absolute gold. “Veronica-” He began, then stopped- he was still stuck purely on her eyes. “You-”  
     It was easier, for her. “JD… Wow. You look-”  
     He cut her off with a grim snicker. ”Don’t even try to say I look good.” His fingers twirled around the deformed side of his face. “I look like a… melting snowcap.”  
     “I love to ski.” She offered a lopsided grin, and any worry of offending him was obliterated when he nodded and rest his palm against his chin with a wicked snicker.  
     “I’m a regular abominable snowman.”  
     This was...easy. Speaking to each other, almost as if nothing had happened. As if JD hadn’t been mutilated, or confined for life. As if they had never been taken apart by his twisted ambition, and her morality. By the very world that made him so dark.  
     Grasping for straws, JD blurted, “You look-- good.”  
     Again, they laughed.  
     It wasn’t until he heard the scribble of Dr.O’Hair’s pen that Jason was released from the spell. That horrible sound that grained and scraped at the inside of his skull. He turned suddenly, and the genuine demeanor he had held for Veronica and her alone vanished into thin air. In his usual scratching, sarcastic way, he arched a sharp brow and griped, “You know what voyeurism is, Doc?”  
     O’Hair frowned from behind his glasses, tired eyes filling with contempt. In response, he turned slowly and took the door handle. “We’ll have a session regarding this later?”  
     “Yeah, I bet you’d like that.” He didn’t wait for the man to leave before turning grumpily and wiping the bottom as his nose as if the man made him itch. There was a pause, and then he swallowed a bit. “You uh--” His smile was uneven, cartoonish. “You met my shrink?”  
     Veronica let a strange laugh bubble between her lips, thinking suddenly that it was hot under her jacket. “He uh-- He actually wrote me to come.”  
     Jason faltered, but tried to cover it quickly by scratching the back of his head with his good hand. The frail one remained on the table, almost entirely motionless. Still, his eyes dropped to his lap. “And ah, here I thought you came of your own volition.” His laugh was not at all happy, and somehow Veronica knew she had unsettled him.  
     She found herself comforting him without meaning to. “He only wrote me, JD. I didn’t drive seven hours for him.”  
     His hand fell back to the table, but he was smiling again,however faintly. “Yeah… that’s true.” It didn’t even take a full ten seconds for him to come back full force, leaning again across the table and forcing Veronica to lean back. “So then, you did it?”  
     “Did… what?”  
     “Got out of here!” Grinning, JD threw both hands into the air as if it where obvious. “Skipped town, went to some college-- Veronica Sawyer, at law!” He carefully placed his fingers into a steeple, leaning against the back of his chair.  
     “Oh!” She crinkled her nose. “Yeah--”  
     “You top of your class yet?”  
     Now, finally, it was her turn to grin. “Aiming for it.”  
     “Good.” Jason was resisting the urge to put his feet on the table like a jackass very strongly. “How’s the campus? The other students?”  
     “Good!” She had spoken too loudly, nearly cut him off. Jason flinched.  
     They both knew damned good and well where her unease came from. For once, JD didn’t comment. Veronica was left to scramble for a new topic.  
     “...How is it?!”  
     “Excuse me?”  
     “The-- living here?”  
     Jason resisted the urge to be totally sarcastic. He failed. “Oh, every day is a dream.”  
     “It’s uh…”  
     “Well, between the fluorescent lights and barred windows and shocks, it’s like being right back home. Very comforting.” He nodded, shapely jaw clenching and unclenching momentarily. “But, it’s better than prison. Or death row. And it’s ah-- home. Since I’m a ‘danger to society’, and all.” His snicker was in-genuine.  
     But Veronica was only staring at him, still stuck on something he had said earlier. “...Shocks?”  
     “Oh yeah, real-” He paused, before bolstering on as if it where nothing. “-therapeutic. The only downside is the t-t-t-t-tremors!” That sarcastic smile peeled open into a fiendish grin as he mocked being electrocuted, entire body convulsing before with a sudden sigh, he leaned back lazily into his chair.  
     “Jason, I-”  
     “Don’t.” Veronica was brought short, unable to continue as the man shut her down. “Don’t do the whole, ‘I’m sorry.’ thing. I don’t want to hear it.”  
     She had been unprepared, and now stung wildly from his sharp words, throat tightening considerably. Face hot and clammy, unease crept along the back of her neck and into her scalp. It was hard to breathe under this jacket, and she began slipping it off r with her wrapped arm. “JD…” Her voice was so gentle, so inherently good, that Jason’s eyes finally dropped from her face at the table. Shame filled the sharp edges of his lips, and the way his bad hand went up to scratch his nose. “The fact that you’re… in here-- and I’m…”  
     He tried not to let her finish, but the crack in his voice gave away that she was immediately forgiven. Perhaps, he had never been truly frustrated. “Veronica, there’s no-”  
     “Why didn’t you tell them about me?”  
     “...What can I say, baby? You make me weak.” He was joking-- but Veronica knew him well enough to know he wasn’t joking at all. Not really. The sadness that touched his tone made her ache-- she yearned to reach out, touch his frail hand, and know that he was recovered.  
     Finally, she managed to work the damned jacket off. “...I deserve- I did all of the same-” But she couldn’t lie to him. They both knew it wasn’t the same. It had been different. She sighed, defeated, then looked up from her jacket to his face.  
     All at once, her blood turned cold. Her breath hitched, and her lips felt stiff and weak.  
     Jason looked _terrifying._  
     His face contorted into something nearly… indescribable. He didn’t look furious, or manic- in fact, there was hardly a single crease or line on his plastic skin to be found. So… smooth. At a glance, this could have been misconstrued as eerie calm- but the intensity of his eyes threw the nearly corpselike quality of his features off.  
     They burned holes through her arm, and through the guts and bone of her stomach and spine. Stock still and smiling gently, he glared.  
     He looked like an animal who was about to snap-- his rage was ballistic, and too concentrated.  
     And he was staring directly at her cast.  
     “J-JD…?”  
     As Jason spoke, his gaze stayed on her wound. “What happened to your arm, champ?”  
     The girl’s heart exploded in her chest, constricting and expanding in uneven intervals that left her dizzy. She meant to sound commanding, but her voice came only as a whimper. “A-An accident on campus.”  
     “Oh?”  
     “I uh-” She tried swallowing, but her tongue was dry and felt too large in her mouth. “It was just a parking lot missh-- I was on my scooter- Will- I mean, I wasn’t watching-”  
      _“Will?”_  
     She floundered under that sickening gaze, feeling her skull buckle and crunch underneath it. “No, I-” But it was too late, and she was having a hard time saying anything but what he wanted to hear. “He’s- My- neighbor.”  
     “Will.”  
     “W-William.” It was too late. God, it was too late. He knew. She had no idea how, but JD knew. She’d given it away. And his entire demeanor had changed from righteous fury to something twisted-- and jealous.  
     His voice was auditory carnage. “You know, Veronica, it’s funny.”  
     “...Funny…?”  
     “William is my _pop's_ middle name.”  
     She didn’t find that funny at all. She should go. This wasn’t right-- this didn’t even really seem like JD. This anger was foreign to her, more mature than when they were just seventeen. This hatred was capable-- and it made her feel like she was slipping fast into a slope she hadn’t foreseen as dangerous.  
     “Jason…” She used his full name wearily, trying to reason with him as cautiously as possible. “Are you okay?”  
     “Oh, I feel like electricity.” His smooth mask was faltering, bits and pieces of his true emotion leaking through in glitchy patches. His eyebrow hooked, then his smirk became uneven and too sharp. He ran a shaking hand through his hair, only sending the front strands right over his forehead in messy disarray. “It’s just-- it’s rich. So fucking rich.” He was hardly making sense. “I just-- never thought you’d do it.”  
     “Never-” She was gaining in volume without meaning to, pitch shattering several octaves. “What are you talking about?!”  
     And there it was-- he snapped. His hands assailed downwards into the metal tabletop, sending an explosion of metal sound across the empty room. Veronica flinched back, shrinking into her chair helplessly. “That you’d pretend I never existed! That you’d-- you’d-- vanish, Veronica! I mean, FUCK. I at least thought you’d show up at my trial, or my sentencing!”  
     Her eyes stung, watching pain and fury blast from the man who obviously had been trying to hold back earlier. His emotional wounds were very obviously fresh-- they’d never truly healed-- and she was at the mercy of his mourning.  
     “For fucks sake, Veronica, _you were supposed to be on my side!_ The one person who didn’t-- who promised not to abandon me! And I’m STUCK here in this RATHOLE of a facility, and I’m NEVER getting out. But YOU-” His laugh was daggers, and without warning he gripped the heavy table by one end and FLIPPED it over, sending it clanging and crashing into several scraping chairs. The sound was deafening, screeching. Veronica found herself clutching either side of her head, knees pulled up and eyes wide on him. “-get to go to college and move on and marry some LAWYER. _But fine, fuck it, it’s cool_ \-- it’s COOL, everything is sunshine and white picket fences for YOU-”  
     She managed to gain some traction verbally, horrified at how desperate and thick her voice sounded as it left her lips. “You’re sick, Jason.”  
     “Ha!” He went to take a step towards her-- but by now Dr. O’Hair and more than one male nurse where piling into the room, the nurses taking his arms before he had the chance to get too close. “Get-- off of-- me!”  
      A nurse took Veronica by the arm and pulled her from her chair, forcing space between them and dragging her towards the back of the room.  
     Jason was wild. He threw his head back, tried to headbutt a nurse, and was gripped by the hair to keep it back. His teeth gritted, and his eyes bore holes into Veronica from across the room. Through the chaos of him writhing and squirming against them, gnashing his teeth, Dr. O’Hair ordered a nurse to get ‘a jacket’.  
     “You think you’re something? _You think I’m the sick one?!_ ” He was bellowing, the men yanking his arms behind his back and forcing him to turn away from her. “Look at you, Mrs. Sawyer! _Send me a fucking get well card, from wherever the hell!_ You think I’M sick?”  
     Veronica couldn’t breathe, his words pounding against the inside of her skull as she watched a woman re-enter the room with a stained white jacket.  
     JD was laughing, only stopping every now and then to snarl or thrash or scream.  
     “Get her out of here!” Dr. O’Hair cried as JD knocked his wire framed glasses off of his nose-- veronica felt like she should resist, but didn’t, and was pulled from the room.  
     The nurse from earlier this morning that tried to wake Jason came in then, hair falling from her once neat bun into her face, which glistened with sweat. She already looked frantic, and hardly even took in the room before blurting, “Dr. O’Hair, we have a breakdown episode 3 from Patient 8. Duncan J. in the dormitory hallway-” Dr. O’Hair was able to step away as the men managed to keep Jason’s thrashing at bay. He realized that this small nurse was absolutely trembling, her mousy face drawn in absolute horror that had nothing to do with Jason at all. She was mumbling, rapidly. “...Patient 6, Deacon B.-- he-- _oh, god_. Hung-”  
     She was cut off by JD’s cackling, his head bowed as they managed to wrestle the straight jacket over his chest. He didn’t stop this maniac giggling until they injected him with sedatives.  
     Everything became a euphoric blur of color and sound, and nothing hurt anymore. Not even Veronica, who by now was long gone.


	10. Chapter 10

     “Does anyone want to go first?”   
  
     The doctor was met with no response in the entirety of his circle.  
  
     In the Lounge Room of the men’s wing, it had been quiet for weeks. At least a month. Jason didn’t really know the exact date, anymore.  
  
      He sat away from the circle of chairs in the middle of the Lounge, watching them play Pinky and the Brain from the table by the window. Six men, including Duncan, Hugh, and Slim-Jim, sat in that circle. O’Hair was at the head of it all, a clipboard in his articulate, wrinkled hands. Instead of listening to what he had to say, Jason focused on how veiny the back of his palms where, and how his bones moved under his skin as if made of tissue paper. Too thin; ready to rip open to reveal his tendons.  
  
     Without response, the therapist begrudgingly went on. “...We haven’t lost a patient in over twenty five years. I know the impact Deacon’s death must have had on some of you.” He shuffled his clipboard papers, as if suddenly realizing they were crooked. “We should have had this group session sooner. My only apology is that it was delayed.”  
  
     “Your _only_ apology?”  
  
     The room turned to Jason, who looked out of the window from Duncan’s usual seat with an acidic smirk. Dr. O’Hair scowled-- he could feel the room turning against him.  
  
     Instead of pointing out that his comment was in fact ill mannered, the man adjusted his coat and stated, “Jason, would you like to join the circle?”  
  
     “No thanks."  
  
     “Well, only members of this session are permitted to give comments. So please, refrain.” The smug air to his voice was unmistakable. Hugh went rigid in his chair. Jason noticed a distinct twinge of contempt for the doctor in the bearded lug.  
  
      JD scoffed, scratching his head and returning his gaze out of the window as O’Hair refocused his attention back to his patients.   
  
     Duncan just stared at the floor. He’d been doing a lot of that, lately.  
  
     “Alright,” The doctor began, flipping through several pages on his clipboard. “It’s been a month since we lost Deacon. You’ve all had time to cope. Can we hear a bit about that? What about--” he paused, hardly glancing up. “-- Luis.”  
  
     A man chewing on his thumbnail glanced up, letting his hand fall to his lap. JD recognized this guy. Had a nervous tick, and a stutter. Listening to him talk was torture.  
  
     “I wasn’t ever close with Deacon. We p-played chess together, sometimes.” He seemed tentative, ginger to move on. “He g-gave me his cassette t-tapes.” Something solemn fell over the waver of his voice. “It’s harder to listen to them now.”  
     “Good. Good, that’s good.” It sounded very much to Jason like the ‘good doctor’ didn’t give a damn what Stutter Gonzalez said at all. “What about you, Hugh?”  
  
     The man raised both eyebrows, as if offended by the audacity of the question. Instead of answering, he cleared his throat and asked through clenched teeth, “Why didn’t we have a service?”  
  
     The silence was brutal. Still, O’Hair stood fast against the brute force of his question, answering plaintively. “Services for patients are held by their families. You know that.”  
  
     The shortness of Hugh's patience thrilled JD. The man in only a second turned scarlet under his ginger beard, barking, “You know that he didn’t have a family ‘cept for us to have some service!”  
  
     “It’s hardly constructive for you to-”  
  
     “Hardly constructive is your lot dickin’ around while he went and hung himself!”  
  
     Duncan finally shifted, but only to squeeze his eyes shut. “ _Nobody had time to stop him_.”  
  
     “You did.” The round man glared right through the blonde. “May as well have looped the noose."  
  
     “Hugh!” O’Hair at last gained the vocal traction to attain control. With one swift motion, he pointed to the hall out of the lounge. “We’ll have a private session later this evening. That’s a conduct mark.”  
  
     JD could only laugh as Hugh, looking like he may beat the wiry doctor to death with his meaty stubhands, stood and stomped back to their shared dorm. He left his chair knocked over.  
  
      The doctor cleared his throat and tried to continue. “Now, Jimmy, if you could…”  
  
     He was interrupted again by JD slinking off of the back table and winding deliberately through the chairs, cutting through the circle to the far side of the room.  
  
      Leaving the lounge, he had intended to see what Hugh was planning to do once he got to their dorm. He hoped he wasn’t going to smash anything. He hated it when he smashed his stuff.  
  
     But as he walked down towards his own dorm, the door to the lounge slammed with a metallic clang. He raised both brows, pivoting on his heels to glimpse at what orderly was coming for him. It was no orderly. Not at all.  
  
     Duncan, his glasses sliding down his nose and head bowed, was speed walking to his own room. He turned a corner, and was gone.  
  
     JD glanced to where Duncan had disappeared. He tilted his head both ways, then twitched his nose.  
  
     “Fuck it.” He shrugged, popped his neck, and went to follow him.


	11. Chapter 11

            “Why is nobody ever happy to see me?” Jason sighed, leaning against the open door frame. He tilted his chin towards Duncan across the room. “Watcha doin?”  
  
             The blonde's eyes were glassy, rimmed red. “ _Go away._ ”  
  
            To muddle the sound, Jason used his back to shut the door. “It smells like cigarettes in here.”  
  
            “Oh god, go away…”  
  
            “Hey now, what’s going on?” JD lifted a sharp brow. Feigned concern. “Smoking alone?"  
  
            “You’re horrible.”  
  
            This brought him to a stop, lips pulling down against plastic skin. “Come again?” The frail hand that hung at his waist twitched. He shoved it into his pocket.  
  
            “It’s because of you,” Duncan continued, but his words shook terribly. His fingers tightened over his curls until the knuckles bleached. “If you hadn’t scared off that girl. Caused such a scene-”  
  
            JD hadn’t planned to move the way he did. He didn’t think out grabbing Duncan’s hands and twisting him hard by the wrist.  
  
            Still, as Duncan hissed and hunched, he couldn’t help but tighten his grip. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”  
  
            Duncan was foolishly brave, and foolishly stubborn. “If you hadn’t lost it, someone could have stopped him.”  
  
            “Someone?” His grin was horrible. It raised the hair on Duncan’s neck. “Someone like you? Huh? Someone who was there? You’re quick to blame me, when you basically handed him the sheet!”  
  
            As if the life had been torn out of his body, Duncan went still, his glasses falling to the floor and cracking along the lens of the right eye. “But I-”  
  
            “I know what happened, bud. Even if nobody else does. I know you killed him. I know what happened that day.”  
  
            _“No.”_   Jason shoved a hand over his mouth– and Duncan bit him, which drove his shoulder into the man’s chest.  
  
            “Don’t like hearing what you dish out? That it was all you? You’re the one who freaked on the poor guy. You’re the one who wanted him to leave you alone. He was already alone.” Jason leaned in too close, gnashed his teeth. “He went to you trying to dig up something you wanted buried, and you treated him like a problem. And he cared about you– you were the only thing he lived for, probably. It’s only natural he’d want to fix any of your problems.”  
  
            “I didn’t want this.”  
  
            Jason couldn’t bring himself to stop.  Loathing clawed his insides. The only way to relieve this pain was to expel it. “You loved him, didn’t you?” When Duncan didn’t cooperate, he rattled him like an impatient child. “Didn’t you?!”  
  
            “I wanted to be better. He’s got to know that.” He was crying, and for some reason, that pissed JD off.  
  
            “He doesn’t know anything, Duncan! He’s dead! He doesn’t exist anymore!”  
  
            “Stop.” He was near some breaking point. “I didn’t know what he was talking about. He was- He kept saying something about our secret, and- I didn’t ever tell him anything!”  
  
            “So you killed him.”  
  
            “I never wanted this!”  
  
            Finally, Jason let go and stepped back. Gloating and hateful, he basked as the man fell to his palms and knees. “It had to be someone's fault.”  
  
            Duncan didn’t answer.  
  
            It bored Jason to see him so confused and helpless. A grown man writhing on the dirty floor. Unable to connect the dots between a handful of antidepressants and cigarettes. To gather the sticks.  
  
             Had it coming, anyway. He shouldn’t have brought up Veronica.


	12. Chapter 12

            Veronica woke up to Heather Chandler sweeping across the length of her bedside.  
  
            Blonde coils of hair eerily still as her frame glided through the dark, her arched brow hooked above sharp eyes- familiar, so familiar.  
  
            Regardless, she screamed.  
  
            The sudden noise startled Heather, her robe nearly slipping off as she whipped around. The surprise didn’t last long. Within the minute, her eyes lidded, and her hands went to rest on the full slope of her hips.  
  
            “Oh _barf,_ Veronica.” Her eyes rolled, head lolling just slightly. “You’re so dramatic.”  
  
            A great wave of emotion wracked the dark haired girl, right hand flying to clamp over her lips. With round eyes she trembled, feeling suddenly tissue thin.  
  
            Of course, Heather Chandler would be irritated with her in this situation.  
  
            The blonde continued, ignoring her counterpart's lack of conversational skills. It wasn’t hard; hell, she’d done it the whole time they were ‘best friends’.  
  
            She made rounds about the dorm, peeking into the hall and scrutinizing posters. When she spoke, she was awfully aloof. “So, you finally made it out of Westerberg.”  
  
            _“You aren’t real.”_ There was a familiar desperation in Veronica’s voice as she pressed her hands on either side of her head, throat too dry to swallow.  
  
            Heather scrunched her tiny nose and huffed. “Don’t be rude. I’m not the one who’s been skipping out on my sugar pills.”  
  
            What? No, that made no sense. Veronica’s eyes darted back and forth, skimming countertops and shelves through the dim. She could have sworn she’d taken her medication tonight. Hadn’t she?  
  
             Regardless, skipping one night doesn’t warrant a full on episode. That’s just not how it worked.  
  
             Why see Heather now? So long after the fact? It’d been years since she’d suffered delusions like this.  
  
            “I know,” Heather replied to her silent questions, returning her attention to the bed. “And, if I can say? You look like hell.”  
  
            Veronica blinked, and her dead classmate wasn’t an inch from her nose. She nearly smacked herself on the headboard in attempt to create fresh distance between them.  
  
            “I mean, seriously? Have you even _exfoliated_ since before I died?”  
  
            She had not, but she decided to omit that detail. _“Get out of my head.”  
_  
            Heather only groaned, tossing her pale hands up in exasperation. “You know what? Fine, I get it. Your life is going to shit and to make yourself feel better, you take it out on me.”  
  
            “I’m not-”  
  
            The girl only held out one finger, chin up. “Don’t interrupt me.” There was a brief pause, before, “Thank you. Now, are you really telling me you can’t think of a single reason you’re seeing me again?”  
  
            Veronica looked at the sheets, sifting through a jumble of colliding thoughts.  
  
            “Christ, you’re hopeless.” Heather had busied herself in the mirror across the room. “You don’t think it has anything to do with the little spat between you and Norman Bates the other week?”  
  
            A silence fell between them.  
  
            Satisfied, the blonde smirked and regarded her friend again. “Don’t look so somber. In my opinion, you shouldn’t have gone.”  
  
            “I didn’t ask your opinion."  
  
            “Protective much?" Heather tossed her hair over her shoulder, glanced at her chest. Her face twisted and she closed the satin robe a little tighter. "Besides, don’t you have a new beau? Why play catch-up with Hannibal Lecter?”  
  
            “Stop it, Heather.”  
  
            “Not that he’s an improvement. You need me more than ever. Too bad you murdered me, and all.”  
  
            _“Stop it, Heather!”_   The sound boomed from her chest, filling the dark. Her eyes squeezed shut, hands gripping each side of her skull.  
  
            When she opened them again, she was alone. Utterly alone.  
  
            Heather Chandler had vanished, just as quickly as she’d appeared. Veronica didn’t feel any better.  
  
            She’d be back. Of this much, she was sure.  
  
            Heather always came back.


	13. Chapter 13

           “Veronica, did you hear me?”  
  
           She hadn’t. Veronica bristled, tilting her chin towards her psychiatrist with an obvious, guilty haste.   
  
           The woman was patient. Did anything ever get under her skin? “I’ve been thinking. You told me you kept a diary, in high school.”   
  
           “Oh. Yeah,” She began, eyebrows pinching as the looked back up to the popcorn ceiling, “but I never finished it.”  
  
           “I want you to.”  
  
           “Come again?”   
  
           Bernadette fiddled with the clasp of her clipboard, tapping the corner of it over her knee in thought. “I want you to finish the diary. Maybe it’d do something positive for you to reread it. Look into the thoughts of the Veronica from those days. Reflect, and finish it.”  
  
           Veronica made a sound of consideration, scratching the lip of her cast. “I don’t know.”  
  
           “Why?”  
  
           “I mean, those aren’t exactly memories I want to keep.”  
  
           “Ah,” the woman nodded, tapping her pen on her full bottom lip, “but perhaps what you need is closure. Final closure.”  
  
           Oh. Veronica supposed that wasn’t wrong. But, how was she supposed to get closure after her last meeting with JD?  
  
           She hated to admit it, and it scared her, but… this didn’t feel  __ finished.  
__   
           She chose to voice none of these concerns. “If you think so. I’ll see if I can find it.”  
  
           “Think of it as a continuation of what we talked about last time. About the antagonist, or opposing force, in your life. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself.”  
  
           “You think I’m wrong about it being JD?”  
  
           The doctor hummed low in her throat. “Well, that’s not my decision. Only you can find this out. I don’t think you’re wrong, I just think the answer was hasty.” She paused to jot down a quick note before continuing. “You told me the problem wasn’t Jason, but what he and your relationship represented. I’m raising you this question: Is the perspective he gave you the true conflict in your life? Or does it just scare you?”  
  
           You know, Veronica knew that it was this woman’s job to make her question herself, but she was feeling pretty attacked. Or maybe just panicked. She hadn’t thought about that, and didn’t know if she wanted to.   
  
           Abruptly, she sat straight. “I think I should go.”   
  
           “What? Veronica-”  
  
           Hastily, she snatched her purse off of the armrest, running a tongue over very dry lips. “No, I’m fine, I just forgot that I have an appointment for my cast.”   
  
           Bernadette was not taking the bait, but knew better than to corner Veronica. Sometimes, you had to let them run, so they could be alone, and face themselves. She gave a nod, but her eyes only thinly veiled her worry. “Alright, of course. But, if you need to call me, please do.”   
  
           Veronica didn’t reply. Dimly aware of her feet fumbling one after another and her hand on the chilled doorknob, she was out into the hallway, and then suddenly in the elevator. Alone.  
  
           She hadn’t had the time to mention Heather, and was glad.


End file.
